Roku 2 targets gamers with Angry Birds

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Roku, the Netflix streaming specialist, has announced three new flavours of its next-gen player - the Roku 2.

And there's one big addition - the inclusion of Angry Birds as Roku aims for a app based TV gaming revolution.

"I expect games to be big on Roku, just like they exploded on smart phones and tablets," said Anthony Wood, the company's CEO. "Angry Birds is just the beginning. We are spending a lot of time with the major casual game publishers.

"Between now and Christmas you’ll see the games selection on Roku grow dramatically. My goal is to grow Roku into a major low cost family oriented gaming platform, with games in the $5 range rather than $30 range."

Controlling Angry Birds on your TV will be easy (or should be at least) with the new Bluetooth motion sensor remote control.

Roku has also announced a couple of new Netflix features, such as 1080p streaming and subtitles. There's also new channels (apps) from the likes of AOL, Facebook and Fox News - bringing the total available to almost 300.

As stated, three models of the Roku 2 are available: the Roku 2 HD which offers 720p playback, the Roku 2 XD which ups the HD action to 1080p and the Roku 2 XS, which comes wit the enhanced remote, an Ethernet port and USB connectivity. They are priced at $59, $79 and $99 and the Bluetooth powered remote can be bought for $29.